In automatic analyzers, and in particular in clinical chemistry analyzers of the type comprising a conveyor for transporting reaction cuvettes adapted for receiving sample-reagent mixtures to be analyzed by means of electro-optical measurements, it is advantageous to insert groups of reaction cuvettes into corresponding cavities of the conveyor, instead of inserting the cuvettes one by one, because the latter procedure is prone to damage at least a part of the cuvettes used, the damage to be expected being in particular damage to the parts of the reaction cuvettes which are provided with the optical properties suitable for the measurements. Such damage would render questionable the accuracy and reliability of the electro-optical measurement of the cuvettes' contents.
Known cuvette holders are made by injection molding and are designed in such a way that they tightly hold the cuvettes and thereby influence the position of the cuvettes even after they have been inserted into respective cavities of a conveyor. The latter influence of the cuvette holder interferes with and modifies the position actually taken by each cuvette inserted into a cavity. This is undesirable, because deformations and manufacturing tolerances of both the cuvette holder and the cuvettes held by the holder affect the position of each cuvette in a non-uniform, unpredictable way and prevents positioning of the cuvettes in their optically optimum positions in the cavities, i.e. in positions which are favorable for carrying out reliable electro-optical, e.g. photometric measurements of the cuvette contents.
Cuvette arrays as known in the prior art are either an assembly of a cuvette holder of the above-mentioned type and a plurality of cuvettes held by the cuvette holder or are arrays of cuvettes made by injection molding as a single-piece component. Both these types of cuvette arrays have the same above mentioned drawbacks.
The use of the above mentioned known cuvette holders and cuvette arrays in known automatic analyzers negatively affect the analyzer performance due to the drawbacks described above.